NorCal – Thankful for Give Thanks

Were you thankful for a joyous Thanksgiving weekend festivity?

In over a decade, Give Thanks has grown into a household event to which it is slowly outgrowing its current state in attendees, productions, talents and venue. With stiff competitions over the Thanksgiving event weekend in around Northern CA, Midnite Eventsgood name has shown its resiliency time after time in delivering a solid all around party.

Celebrating its 11th annual Thanksgiving event, Give Thanks has had many A-list artists made their stops while the glass is still only half empty. Continuing on this year, Midnite Events hosted a 2-Day event featuring an all trance line up for Day-1 with legendary names Paul Oakenfold and ATB along with Cosmic Gate, Andrew Rayel and Ummet Ozcan. While Day-2, bass heads gave thanks to an eclectic night of Knife Party, Nero, Kayzo and Jaykode.

Walking into the venue, the music and vibe were on point as expected but the one element that stood out from any previous years was the production – bigger and better. On top of the stage, stood an 8-ft or so platform wrapped in LED screen providing the artist a wider view overseeing the crowd. As well, there were 4 hanging intelligent lighting trusses high above the dance floor, and off course more lights and lasers. Such production showed the growth and outlook potential for this event.

As for as the music goes, Day-1’s musical journey was one I could vibe better progressively from opening to close. What I found very interesting based on the highest to lowest artist billing time slots (in my mind) was somewhat backward. Built on the artists’ stature, I had presumed the set time would have gone in the

order of Ummet Ozcan, Andrew Rayel, Cosmic Gate, ATB then Paul Oakenfold (or Paul Oakenfold then ATB). Surprisingly enough, an early Oakenfold set to closing off the night with Ummet had a very good flow. From a mellow, somewhat melodic progressive sets by Paul and ATB was followed by a more energetic progressive set by Cosmic Gate which transitioned well into the high energy sets of Andrew and Ummet.

Though overall Day-1 was my choice in musical taste, my highlight set of the event was on Day-2 by Knife Party who came out blazing with just about everything from funky, progressive, techy, uplifting, trip hop, breakbeats, vocals and so on…but setting the stage was a Nero DJ set, Kayzo and Jaykode who mixed it up well with a fusion of downtempo trip hop to high energy trap which put the crowd into a frenzy.

A perk for those who decided to go VIP, got a good glimpse of what goes on behind the stage. You weren’t able to be arm’s reach of the artist but close enough to be part of the production staging with your own catered bar.

Give Thanks is an event still flying under the radar for a lot of EDM fans, but slowly and surely as mentioned in the opening paragraph, this event is growing and eventually will require a bigger venue. The San Jose Civic has been a good hosting location for the past few years and given the permissible venue landscape in Northern CA, some honorable mention would be the Santa Clara Fairgrounds (or any others), Richmond Craneway Pavilion or The Bill Graham Civic Center.

I am not expecting this transition to happen on the 12th annual but why not flirt with the idea.